Police board after City for half of deficit

Peterborough-Lakefield Community Police Service

(PETERBOROUGH) If the City of Peterborough refuses to help the local police force pay off a hefty deficit, one more bad year could deplete the force’s “life savings,” according to Police Chief Murray Rodd.
The Peterborough-Lakefield Police Services Board is facing a $215,763 deficit after shelling out overtime pay for officers. Chief Rodd is hoping City Council will agree to cover half the cost. While the decision to help pay off the deficit will go to council, Mayor Daryl Bennett says the service’s reserves are in place to cover this type of expense.
Currently, the service’s Special Projects reserve is worth roughly $450,000. While it’s enough to cover the deficit, Chief Rodd says he’s worried it won’t leave enough to plan for unexpected costs in the future.
Chief Rodd, along with other members of the Board, will address councillors during a Committee of the Whole meeting on April 22, as they unveil a new business plan. Mayor Bennett, who has had a chance to review the plan, isn’t convinced it financially responsible.
“I think it’s an incomplete document,” he says. “It doesn’t address the need for fiscal restraint.”
The mayor says he plans to put forward a number of motions pertaining to the plan.
Chief Rodd says the deficit could have been avoided, had the board been allotted the budget it requested from the City.
The force ended up receiving roughly $500,000 less than it had hoped, he says, which meant putting off hiring for more officers.
“We asked the City for the money we actually needed,” Chief Rodd says. “But we had to try and fit everything in.”
With a spike in violent crime last year, he says the service was forced to call in officers on their days off or holidays to help out.
“The crime stats do the talking,” he says, adding when specialists like emergency response team members and homicide investigators come in on days off, they receive 20 extra hours of pay. “That level of activity wasn’t anticipated.”
The same levels of overtime pay apply when an officer is required to attend court during their holidays, Chief Rodd says.
Officers have their schedule a year in advance, and in some cases plane tickets are booked and vacations are planned, he says. In many cases, when an officer is called in to attend court during their vacation, they need to make other plans.
With Peterborough’s jurisdiction involved in a Justice on Target initiative, aimed at speeding up the court process, scheduling issues are getting a little easier, Chief Rodd says. Still, officers can’t negotiate whether they’ll show up for a court date.
Officer could be arrested and charged with neglecting duty, he says.
“There’s no choice,” he says. “There’s a victim there counting on the police officer.”
When times have been good, Chief Rodd says the Board has shared surplus money with the City and Selwyn Township. Over the past 15 years, roughly $3 million in surplus has been divvied up, he says. Now that times are bad, he’s hoping the City will take on some responsibility.
“We always do business as smartly and efficiently as we can,” he says. “Sometimes the forces are in your favour, sometimes they aren’t.”